The National Popular Vote (NPV) plan calls for states to
pass identical legislation to enter them into an interstate agreement to
award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote in all 50
states and the District of Columbia once the number of participating
states represents a majority of the Electoral College. The NPV plan is
founded on two rights given to states under the Constitution: first, to
enter into binding interstate compacts, and second, the power over how to
allocate Electoral College votes (a power to change existing rules that
states regularly exercised in the nation's early years, and that Maine
and Nebraska exercise today). As of October 2008, it has been adopted by
four states.

National Popular Vote is led by John Koza, Barry Fadem and Chris Pearson. In February 2006, FairVote's chairman John Anderson and executive director Rob Richie joined Sen. Birch Bayh (D-IN), Rep. John Buchanan (R-AL), Common Cause president Chellie Pingree and other supporters of the proposal for its public introduction. Released at the news conference were the book about the proposal, Every Vote Equal (available from nationalpopularvote.com), co-authored by Koza, Richie, Fadem and three others. FairVote also released its report: Presidential Election Inequality (see right).

FairVote research is cited in support of the National Popular Vote plan in Indiana, because "every vote cast for president should be equally important and equally coveted, whether it originates in California, Connecticut or Crawfordsville."

FairVote's Rob Richie writes that the Electoral College deepens political inequality, and explains why the National Popular Vote plan is our best opportunity to ensure that every vote for president is equally valued.

Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation magazine, highlights FairVote's research in an important piece on the "broad support" growing in the states for the National Popular Vote plan to elect the president.